Prominent conservative group Family Research Council is looking to raise $2.5 million by Sept. 30 to meet its fiscal-year budget.
The Washington-based organization made clear to note that it is “financially stable” but reported that its budget “is stretched thin” as a result of recent efforts including the health care reform battle.
“We spent at least $1 million in unbudgeted funds to shape the health care debate, slow down its progress, expose some of its more unethical features, turn public opinion against it, and set the stage for its repeal,” reported FRC President Tony Perkins in an e-mail to supporters Monday.
In addition, the pro-family leader added, FRC had to make unbudgeted expenditures on other critical issues, including educating Congress and the American public about the negative consequences of repealing ”Don't Ask, Don't Tell,“ repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).
“We must close our budget year in the black because the next huge policy challenges are nearly upon us,” Perkins reported.
With polls currently suggesting that Democrats will lose their majorities in Congress, FRC expects anti-family and anti-faith efforts to be made through the “lame-duck” session.
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the group noted, has already laid out an aggressive legislative agenda that would start on Nov. 15. Reid, Perkins claimed, aims to take up everything from tax cuts to “so-called clean energy bills and every ultra-Left social issue in between.”
“FRC must be ready to meet with Congressmen and mobilize grassroots opposition to any liberal post-election strategy,” Perkins reported.
In the first three months of FRC’s next fiscal year, the pro-family group could spend much of its annual non-personnel budget for battles including the one over marriage following this month’s decision by federal judge Vaughn Walker.
Walker, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, had ruled earlier this month that people of the same sex have the right to marry and that the decision of the majority to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman – as California’s Proposition 8 had done – violates that right.
Walker’s ruling has set up a potentially far-reaching case for the U.S. Supreme Court, but before getting to the high court, it must go through the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most notoriously liberal appeals court in the nation.
“No matter how difficult the challenges, you and I must not stop standing for truth – for faith, family, and freedom,” Perkins encouraged supporters. “We must not surrender or retreat. We must not quit.”
Based in Washington, the non-profit FRC works to advance faith, family and freedom in public policy and public opinion. The organization promotes these values through policy research, public education on Capitol Hill and in the media, and grassroots mobilization.
It also reaches out to pastors to equip churches in the effort to transform the culture.
FRC says it promotes the Judeo-Christian worldview as the basis for a just, free, and stable society.
